Boldfaced statements are parts of the original essay (or a subsequent reply) to which the respondent has directed his comments.
Italicized/emphasized comments prefaced by (R) are those of the respondent and are presented unedited.
My replies appear under the respondent's comments in blue text and are prefaced by my initials (MB).
This is the first of a nine-part reply. Select the "Go to next reply" link at the end of each part to read the next part of the reply.

(R) How are you? I am responding to your response which you posted as
Reply #57 on your
religion essay.(MB) There was much food for thought in that reply. We'll see how much of it
has been digested...*grin*

(R) Throughout these responses, I have often gone for information in other book
sources (as also in the previous letters).(MB) Well done. Hopefully, the fruit of your research will lead to some
interesting discussion. May I ask what some of those sources were? It would be
proper to give credit to them if arguments or quotes are taken from
them.

(R) Please do not think any of this knowledge or these statements are mine
alone.(MB) What really matters is the quality and correctness of what is said.
Einstein once said something along the lines of "wisdom is not knowing something
-- it's knowing where to look it up". One who *doesn't* research his arguments
is more likely to be wrong about them.

(R) I am sorry it has taken so long to reply to you. I have been very busy with
school and work.(MB) I'm more than a bit behind, as well. I guess there's worse things in life
than being busy, eh?

(R) God bless. You are always in my prayers. It has actually been a few months
since I received your e-mail. Yikes! Once again, I have been very
busy.(MB) Not to worry. Let's get on to the meaty
stuff!

"Unity"??? The Bible is only "unified" in the respect that it features the same
central character throughout.
(R) So you admit that the Bible has a central character throughout, that
character being Jesus? This seems contradictory to your other statements that
the Old Testament contains no prophecy concerning Christ. Christ is the central
character of the Bible and is portrayed that way through the Old and New
Testament.(MB) Since there is not even so much as one single word in the Old Testament
that specifically mentions or refers to Jesus, it's rather difficult to claim
that he is the central character within. Also, since the Old Testament is the
history and beliefs of the Jews -- and the Jews do not believe that Jesus is the
Messiah -- it is even more difficult to support any claim for Jesus being the
central character of the OT.
There is a central character who pervades the entirety of the Bible, but
that character is God. Therefore, I could hardly have "admitted" that the
central character is Jesus and there is no contradiction in my other statements.
Jesus is an important character, to be sure, but he doesn't make his appearance
until near the very chronological end of the story and even then is only at the
center for a very short time. This does not point to him being the central
character of the entire Bible.

But, the same can be said for the holy books of any other religion -- most of
which also claim to be inspired by the deity or deities which those books
feature. There is nothing at all special about the Bible in this regard and no
reason to set it apart from or above any other religion's holy book(s).
(R) As I said before, other books do claim to be inspired by God.(MB) Not by "God", but by the deity or deities worshipped by those religions.
There's a significant difference!

(R) However, the unity of other religious books is far from compatible with the
Bible.(MB) Is there any reason why they *should* be compatible with the Bible? Doesn't
this assume that other books are "wrong" if they don't echo what is written in
the Bible? Why isn't the Bible wrong and some other book right?

(R) It has 40 different authors, written over 1500 years in three different
languages on three continents with many controversial subjects and agrees on
everything. How do you explain this away as mere coincidence?(MB) "Agrees on everything"? Surely you jest. You can start with the two
different and mutually-exclusive creation tales in Chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis,
the contradictory genealogies of Jesus presented in Matthew and Luke, and the
inharmonious versions of the resurrection story in all four Gospels and try to
justify how the various books in the Bible "agree on everything"?

(R) Can any other "holy book" make this claim? I think not.(MB) The believers in any book can (and do) make similar claims. Of course, I
doubt that they would want to try to equate themselves with the hundreds of
documented errors and problems in the Bible.

(R) Lets take the Hindus for an example. Their "holy books" teach that the
earth sits upon four white elephants and earthquakes are cause by the shifting
of the elephants!(MB) OK. The Bible teaches that the Earth is a flat plate floating on water
with heaven supported above it by four pillars. Nonsense seems to abound in
religious texts, eh? Needless to say, the errors in one religion's holy book
don't forgive or eliminate the errors in any other religion's book.

(R) Any rational mind can clearly read the difference between the Bible and
other "holy books."(MB) Of course there are differences. But, we are no closer now to determining
which is "right" and which is "wrong" than we ever were. So far, the best we
can say is that all are full of bunk. If the Bible has errors within it, but
can still be claimed to be "right", why can't the same claim be made for other
holy books which also have errors within them?

(R) The Bible is full of prophecy being fulfilled which is something other books
can't claim.(MB) The Bible is full of something but it certainly isn't "fulfilled prophecy".
You will have a very difficult time demonstrating that it is filled with
them.

Independent evidence for the existence of any God must come from sources other
than any given religion's holy book(s).
(R) You want evidence for the existence of God? How about CREATION!(MB) How about it? Creation is a natural process and does not require
supernatural intervention by God or any other deity. Even if we were to accept
that some deity is responsible for creation, why must we assume that it was
Yahweh who was responsible for it? After all, Man has numerous different
stories about different deities who have been claimed to be the one(s) who did
it all. Why are the stories in favor of Yahweh any better than any other story?
There is certainly no evidence to support any of them over any other.

(R) How has God NOT made Himself known to you? Just because He doesn't jump out
in front of you waving a big stick doesn't mean He doesn't exist.(MB) There is not one single thing that anybody can point to that can be
considered compelling evidence of the existence of God. Now, absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence, but it does strongly suggest that God's
existence is nowhere near as self-evident as his believers wish to
assert.

(R) Want more evidence? How about fulfilled prophecy!(MB) If these so-called "fulfilled prophecies" had any validity, don't you think
that would have been clearly established by now?

(R) I have an amazing prophecy for you! It is found in Genesis 5. A genealogy
you say? Well, yes. Let's look a little deeper shall we?(MB) I suspect that this is going to get *real* deep, if
you know what I mean. Oh, well... Let's put on the hip waders and jump
in.

(R) Adam was the first man. His name in Hebrew means, suprisingly,
"man."(MB) Actually, the Hebrew word "adam" can also mean
"ground". That's why the name is used in the second creation tale in Genesis 2
where Man is said to have been created from the dust of the ground and,
therefore, is named Adam.
What you are about to introduce is another golden
oldie that has been refuted for many years. You'll give the supposed Hebrew
translations of several OT names in the lineage descending from Adam and then
try to put them together into a sentence that is supposed to be some sort of
prophecy. There are many flaws with the methodology being used, but all that is
required to trash this effort is to show that there is at least one incorrectly
translated name. In actuality, there are several. Let's have a look at the
rest of the list...

(R) Adam had a son named Seth. Seth means "appointed."(MB) Seth means "substituted". Seth was the son given to
Eve to substitute for the loss of Abel and the banishment of Cain.

(R) Seth's son was Enosh. His name means "mortal."(MB) Enosh means "man" or "mankind".

(R) Enosh had a son named Kenan. Kenan means "sorrow."(MB) Not even close. Kenan actually means either "bought"
or "metalworker" depending on its usage as a verb or as a noun. For use as a
proper name, its meaning is more likely to be the noun "metalworker".

(R) His son was Mahalalel which in the Hebrew means "the blessed
God."(MB) It's closer to "praise of God". However, for
argument's sake, I'll accept it as given.

(R) Mahalalel had a son named Jared. Jared means "shall come down."(MB) Jared means "descent", but it's only a small stretch
to read it as "shall come down".

(R) The son of Enoch was Methuselah. Methuselah means "his death shall
bring."(MB) Wow! Is this one miles off base, or what? This
might be rather embarrassing for your account since Methuselah actually means
"worshipper of the god Selah".

(R) Methuselah had a son named Lamech. Lamech in Hebrew means "the
despairing."(MB) Again, I can find no reference to this name other
than that it is an "unused root of uncertain meaning". On a side note, one
really has to wonder why Hebrew parents would name their children things like
"his death shall bring" or "the despairing" or "sorrow".

(R) The son of Lamech is Noah. Noah means "rest, or comfort."(MB) Agreed. This is more along the lines of the real
meanings of Hebrew names.

(R) There you have it! The Gospel preached thousands of years before it
happened. And this in a genealogy! How do you explain this away?(MB) Looking at the proper translation, I'd have to say
that maybe the authors of Genesis *were* trying to pass along a secret message.
Reading it, it looks like I can take it as proof of my views. Out of curiosity,
you didn't get that off the "Y Files" web site, did you?

To use any holy book as some sort of proof of its own validity is the essence of
circular reasoning.
(R) As I said before, making claims is not proof. Prophecy can be demonstrated
to show that the Bible is inspired. How about the prophecy concerning King
Cyrus (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1). Isaiah, writing around 700 BC, predicts Cyrus by
name as the king who will say to Jerusalem that it shall be built and that the
temple foundation shall be laid.(MB) A big problem with this analysis is that Isaiah did not write those verses.
This "prophecy" is contained within the part of Isaiah that was written around
540 BCE and is commonly referred to by scholars as "Second Isaiah". Therefore,
this is not "prophecy", but history written by an observer.

(R) At the time of Isaiah's writing, the city of Jerusalem was fully built and
the entire temple was standing. Not until more than 100 years later would the
city and temple be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. After Jerusalem was
taken by the Babylonians, it was conquered by the Persians in about 539 BC.
Shortly after that, a Persian king named Cyrus gave the decree to rebuild the
temple in Jerusalem. This was 160 years after the prophecy of Isaiah!(MB) Once again, as shown by current Biblical scholarship, the "prophecy" was
not written by Isaiah and was a contemporary history.

(R) Isaiah predicted a man named Cyrus, who would not be born for 100 years,
would give the command to rebuild the temple which was still standing in
Isaiah's day. Is this coincidence? That is absurd. How do you explain away
this one?(MB) No explanations necessary other than the facts known to us through Biblical
scholarship. It is a weak faith, indeed, that must corrupt history into
"prophecy" in order to justify itself.

(R) The Bible can easily be shown as a reliable historical document. With all
the evidence for its validity and the resurrection of Jesus, reasoning from the
Scriptures is not at all circular.(MB) So far, Biblical historical "reliability" is in serious question. The
evidence (at least as far as "prophecy" goes) seems to dispute your accounts
rather than to confirm them. Also, the resurrection of Jesus is anything but
historically reliable fact. Heck, the Gospels can't even get the story straight
and it's supposed to be a major tenet of Christian belief! Even the Bible seems
to have problems verifying the Bible.

(R) You still need to explain how the unity of the Bible and its prophecy do not
account for its divine inspiration.(MB) Done. I await your response.

That is easily refuted just by examining some of the numerous internal
contradictions between various Bible verses.
(R) Contradictions? Let's see.....(MB) Indeed, we will...

These contradictions run the gamut from different and incompatible versions of
facts between different books relating the same stories to disputes on the very
nature of God and Jesus.
(R) Supposed contradictions hold no water when you actually examine what is
being said. Let's take a look, shall we?(MB) Terrific! I'm sure we'll find that the
contradictions are very real.

Examples of factual contradictions include 2 Samuel 24:9 (which says 800,000 men
drew the sword) vs. 1 Chronicles 21:5 (which says it was 1,100,000),
(R) If you are going to single out verses by themselves, then I myself could
point out "contradictions."(MB) If the contradictions are contained in single verses, why should they not
be addressed that way?

(R) This discrepancy involves the difference in who was included in each report.
In the report in 2 Samuel, the number of men of valor who drew the sword was
800,000, bud did not include the standing army of 288,000 described in 1
Chronicles 27:1-15, or the 12,000 specifically attached to Jerusalem described
in 2 Chronicles 1:14. Including these figures gives the grand total of
1,100,000 men of valor who composed the entire army of the men of
Israel.(MB) Let's look at the entirety of the two verses I
referenced:

2 Samuel 24:9 -- And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto
the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew
the sword; and the men of Judah [were] five hundred thousand men.

1 Chronicles 21:5 -- And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto
David. And all [they of] Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred
thousand men that drew sword: and Judah [was] four hundred threescore and ten
thousand men that drew sword.

Clearly, the wording is the same except for the numbers of men that they
report.
Your attempted harmonization in 1 Chronicles 27:1-15 just won't work, as a
simple reading will point out. Let's read Verse 1 for the key to the
problem.

1 Chronicles 27:1 -- Now the children of Israel after their number, [to
wit], the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their
officers that served the king in any matter of the courses, which came in and
went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course
[were] twenty and four thousand.

The story then goes on to list the twelve different captains who were in
command for each of the twelve different months of the year and says that they
were each in charge of 24,000 men. This is clearly the *same* 24,000 men and
not 24,000 different men for each captain. Your harmonization incorrectly
multiplies the 24,000 by 12 to get 288,000.
There is a 12,000 figure given in 2 Chronicles 1:14, but this is part of a
different story and should not be incorporated into the accounting by Joab.
Taking all this into account, you cannot successfully call my example a
"supposed" contradiction.

(R) The figure of 470,000 in 1 Chronicles 21 did not include the 30,000 men of
the standing army of Judah mentioned in 2 Samuel 6:1.(MB) Sorry, but this just doesn't work. Let's read the
verse:

How do you transfer these men from Israel to become the "standing army of
Judah"? Once again, we find that any attempted harmonization must add unrelated
or incorrectly calculated numbers.

(R) This is evident from the fact that the Chronicler points out that Joab did
not complete the counting of the men of Judah (1 Chron. 21:6). Both
calculations are correct according to the groups which were included and
excluded from each report.(MB) If you are going to attempt to include the previous 30,000 along with the
extra men from Benjamin and Levi, you are going to end up with far more than
500,000 and the contradiction with the account in 2 Samuel will still be
there.

Matthew 27:5 (which says Judas died by hanging himself) vs. Acts 1:18 (which
says he died by falling, bursting open, and having his innards gush
out),
(R) These accounts are not contradictory, but mutually
complementary.(MB) Well, let's see:

Matthew 27:5 -- And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and
departed, and went and hanged himself.

Acts 1:18 -- Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and
falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed
out.

In addition to the obviously different stories of Judas' demise, the two
accounts differ in what happened to the thirty pieces of silver. Acts has Judas
buying the field where he died, while Matthew say that Judas threw the money
away and it was used later by the chief priests to buy a field (an important
"fulfillment of OT prophecy" for Matthew).

(R) Judas hung himself exactly as Matthew affirms that he did. The account in
Acts simply adds that Judas fell, and his body opened up at the middle and his
intestines gushed out.(MB) Acts doesn't "add" anything. It tells a different
story of how Judas died.

(R) This is the very thing one would expect of someone who hanged himself from a
tree over a cliff and fell on sharp rocks below, especially when you note the
geography of the area.(MB) Two problems here. One is that Acts says that Judas "fell headlong". That
wouldn't happen if he fell from where he hanged himself. Rather, such a body
would fall feet first. Also, there is no mention of any cliff or any sharp
rocks in the account, so your explanation is unsupportable. There's also a
problem of logic. Presumably, both stories are reporting the cause of Judas'
death. If, as you say, Judas hanged himself as reported in Matthew, he would
have been dead long before any purported fall off any purported cliff onto any
purported sharp rocks.

(R) Neither statement says that the other did not happen. If a man jumped from
a building with a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger, it could be said
that he died from jumping or from pulling the trigger.(MB) Of course. However, both incidents would normally be recorded in the story
of the man's death. If the account of Judas' death was important enough to be
reported on two occasions, why can't the stories even come close to agreeing
about how it happened?